What Have Historians Been Arguing About... the British Empire and the age of revolutions in the global South

The historiography of the British Empire has taken a long course since the era of decolonisation. Political histories of the late twentieth century considered the mechanisms connecting crises at the ‘periphery’ with metropolitan decision-making. One rather overused stereotype was the so-called ‘man on the spot’ pushing empire forward, be they a missionary, an adventurer, or a colonial operative creatively interpreting directives from the centre. That historiographical moment encompassed the origins of anti-colonial nationalism and the extent to which it arose from lobbying for colonial civil-service posts and representation in decision-making.

There was also sustained attention to the economic logics of empire, drawing in writings by intellectuals in the global South from the late nineteenth century onwards, about the draining of resources and capital by imperialists, and whether this gave rise to famines or to the decline of small industries. In the midst of these historical debates, came vital postcolonialism, with its desire to recover the voice of the peasant and to foreground the marginalised and the dispossessed rather than the colonial military commander, adventurer or governor or indeed the English-language colonial archive. It sought to move from urban centres of power to forests, villages and frontiers. Postcolonialism in time took a cultural turn, so that the subaltern could also indicate a gendered marginality or a cultural marginality of some other kind, connected to race or sexuality...